Archive for 'Wedding'

While we don’t see the traditional wedding day going away anytime soon, it is clear that elopements and small, intimate ceremonies are becoming an increasingly popular trend these days. And we can totally understand why. Just think about it: you and the one you love, hand in hand in a beautiful, private place, declaring your love for each other in front of maybe one or two of your closest friends. It leaves very little room for the normal wedding stresses like wedding costs or guest lists. It’s super romantic and – let’s face it – practical. Eloping obviously isn’t right for everyone, but for those of you who think it might be the best idea for your wedding, let’s talk about how to plan the perfect elopement.

1. PICK THE PERFECT LOCATION

When you’re eloping you really open up the list of possible ceremony locations. You can go off the beaten path without worrying if guests can get to your ceremony or not. You can elope in the same places that you would have booked if you had a bigger wedding ceremony, or you could elope in the woods at the top of a tree if that’s your thing. The sky is the limit. We recommend picking a spot that means something to the both of you. Maybe where you had your first date, or a place where you shared a significant moment in your relationship. Another great idea is to travel to a place you’ve never been and elope on your vacation. That way you can even have your wedding and honeymoon in the same spot and make it an epic getaway.

Last summer we photographed Colleen and Kaz, a couple from British Columbia who flew to St. John’s on a romantic elopement getaway. They had never been to the Rock and thought the landscape would make an unforgettable backdrop for their intimate ceremony. They chose to get married on a cliff in Cuckhold’s Cove, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It was gorgeous, and they certainly didn’t need to get a florist or decorator involved. The day after their elopement they took the ferry to Fogo Island for a honeymoon at Fogo Island Inn. How very romantic!

2. DO AN ACTIVITY YOU LOVE

If you and your partner love hiking together, go for a hike on your wedding day. Maybe even get married on that hiking trail, as we already recommended to you in #1! Love bowling together? Go bowling after your ceremony! You don’t have to worry about being on anyone else’s schedule or meeting anyone else’s expectations of what a wedding day should be. You can just sit back, relax and enjoy each other’s company. Think about the activities you love doing together and work them into your wedding day.

Colleen and Kaz’s idea of the perfect day involved a picnic basket, blanket, and some champagne so they could share a lovely cliff-side toast with their closest friends right after they said I Do. It was so perfect and relaxed. After their champagne toast they joined us for a sunset hike around Cuckhold’s Cove, Quidi Vidi, and Signal Hill.

3. YOU DO YOU!

An elopement is a perfect opportunity to be as creative as you want to be. There’s no better time to do something different than an intimate elopement. You can be creative not only with your location or your wedding activities but also with your decorations and food ideas. The theme that runs throughout every one of our suggestions for the perfect elopement is to make the day about YOU. We obviously feel like this is important for any wedding, but we know that it can be hard to make things personal and unique when you’re having a bigger ceremony or reception. With an elopement, you can take everything you’ve ever learned about planning a wedding and throw it out the window. Get married where you want to get married. Invite the close friends or family you want to invite and keep that list small if that’s what you want. Fill the day with activities you want to do on your wedding day. Wear what you want to wear. Make your wedding look exactly how you want it to look.

Colleen and Kaz are perfect examples of how special your day can be when you make your wedding day personal and unique. One thing we absolutely loved about the day was that Colleen didn’t have a bouquet for the ceremony, so she wandered around the cliffside in Cuckhold’s Cove and did some foraging. She came back with a breathtaking bouquet of blueberry bushes and twigs, probably one of our favourite bouquets to date. They made their wedding their own, which is honestly something that gets lost on a lot of wedding days.

4. CAPTURE THE DAY

We are obviously huge fans of getting the right photographer to capture your wedding day, but this takes on a whole different meaning for an elopement. Because there won’t be many people there to see the story unfolding, we think it’s important to get a photographer to capture that story for you. Get someone who will photograph the little moments and the little details you chose for your wedding day. Chances are you will want to share those memories with your loved ones who weren’t present at the ceremony.

5. WRITE DOWN YOUR MEMORIES OF THE DAY

A great post-elopement or even honeymoon activity would be to sit down with your partner and write out a list of all the memorable moments that happened on your wedding day. We think this is a great exercise for any wedding, but much like the photos, we think it will hold an extra special meaning because the day was only witnessed by the both of you, and maybe a friend or two. It will be interesting to see which moments stood out to you and which ones stood out to your partner. And it’s a great thing to look back on years later while reminiscing about your perfect elopement!

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As mentioned almost a hundred times already, as long as you make your elopement about you and your partner, the rest will fall into place. Focus on the love you share and plan out your idea of the perfect day, and your elopement will be the dream wedding you’ve always wanted.

If you’re still on the fence about making your wedding an elopement or intimate ceremony, check out the rest of the photos from Colleen and Kaz’s Cuckhold’s Cove dreamy elopement below.

Thank you, Colleen and Kaz, for letting us be a part of your Newfoundland elopement. Your wedding was such a beautiful, special experience and a day that remains very memorable to both of us.

In April we returned from Italy just in time to shoot Sarah and Matthew’s gorgeous Quidi Vidi Brewery wedding. We woke up to a grey, foggy day and headed down to Quidi Vidi to meet up with the beautiful, laid back couple for their first look photos before venturing into Cuckhold’s Cove for more portraits before the ceremony began.

We love shooting first looks. A first look is such an intimate, emotional moment between a couple. We love to capture the excitement and the tears that happen when someone taps their soon to be husband or wife on the shoulder and looks into their eyes for the first time on their wedding day. Those moments are pure bliss, and make for some of the best wedding memories. The reason we love capturing the first look before a ceremony is simply because it’s a private moment between the couple, and it’s about nothing other than the unspoken love they feel for each other. It’s about taking in each other in a suit or wedding dress, and truly realizing for the first time that this is the day you marry your best friend. That love and happiness really comes out in the photos. It also serves as a great way to get the nerves out before walking down the aisle!

When Sarah and Matthew told us they were planning on getting photos together before their wedding ceremony at Quidi Vidi Brewery, we knew we had the opportunity to do a first look using Cuckhold’s Cove as the backdrop. We couldn’t have asked for a better location! The resulting photos tell such a beautiful love story.

The grey weather really made the flowers in Sarah’s bouquet and crown pop. They were a great contrast against the darker looking day and all of it added a beautiful atmosphere to their portraits.

We’re huge believers in the simple beauty of candid portraits. When a couple focuses on each other instead of the fact that they’re being photographed, the photos will capture the love and joy instead of capturing the jitters some people feel in front of the camera. When you look back on your wedding day you are going to want to see the happiness in your eyes and you will want to remember the way your heart felt when you looked at your bride or groom. You won’t want to look at your photos and remember forced smiles or awkward poses. It makes perfect sense to have some posed photos with your bridal party and family, but we want to capture those little moments between the couple. Those smiles, kisses and laughs are the memories that will last a lifetime.

The great thing about using Quidi Vidi as a location for wedding photos is that you can turn in one direction and have the sprawling ocean as your backdrop, and then turn in another direction and get the quintessential charm of a colourful, historic fishing village. It’s so versatile and makes it seem like we followed the bride and groom to tons of different locations.

Here in Newfoundland you just never know what kind of day you’re going to get. We see proof of that all the time when we are preparing for sun or rain on a wedding day and get the exact opposite when we wake up in the morning. We’re used to being thrown weather curveballs as Newfoundland wedding photographers, but the evening of Sarah and Matthew’s wedding threw us the most beautiful, unexpected curveball yet. We were just sitting down to begin supper when we looked out the window and realized that we were getting probably the most beautiful sunset we’ve ever seen during a wedding. If you told us beforehand that this grey, foggy day would provide us such a striking sunset in the evening, we never would have believed you. But we looked outside and it was like we were looking out at an entirely different day. We approached Sarah and told her that we were getting a fantastic sunset and we wanted to take advantage of it, and she didn’t even bat an eyelash. We immediately went to find Matthew and the four of us made our way up to Signal Hill within a minute, no questions asked. Most of the guests didn’t know we were leaving, Sarah and Matthew had no clue where we were headed or how long we would be, but they trusted us. And we are so thankful that they did, because we made some real magic happen. We LOVE laid back couples who will go with the flow on their wedding day. It allows us the opportunity to get some pretty epic photos like the ones below.

We couldn’t have asked for a better wedding to kick off this season. It was filled with love, laughter, and adventure. Thank you to Sarah and Matthew for being such a fun couple! We’re so glad you chose us to capture your wedding day!

Last October we had the pleasure of shooting Melissa and Mark’s wedding at Yellowbelly Brewery. We have said numerous times that this wedding was simply perfect, and we really mean it. Everyone was so happy and ready for a laugh, the venue was beautiful, the weather was amazing, and everything just seemed to fall into place really nicely. Above all else, the main reason this wedding stands out to us so much is that Melissa and Mark were just so incredibly thrilled to be marrying each other. We always tell couples that a wedding day goes by so quickly that it’s important to stop, look at each other, and really take in the moment. We didn’t have to remind Melissa and Mark to do that. All throughout the day and night, they could be found smiling at each other and getting lost in the moment. Many times we also watched as Melissa closed her eyes, smiled a huge smile, and soaked up all the happiness and love she was feeling. It was obvious that Melissa and Mark felt that as long as they were together, the little things didn’t really matter.

The day before Melissa and Mark’s wedding it was actually calling for torrential rain, so we prepared ourselves for a rainy wedding shoot. But luckily, when we woke up on the day of the wedding, the sun was shining and the temperature was pretty mild for an October in Newfoundland. We began our day by meeting up with the bridal party at The Luxus Boutique Hotel where they were getting ready before the ceremony.

When Melissa brought her dress out of the closet for some photos we couldn’t believe how stunning and unique it was. We’ve shot a lot of weddings but we’ve never seen a dress that looked quite like Melissa’s.

One thing we quickly learned about Melissa is that she has three great loves: Mark, her dog Winston, and knitting. She knit matching shawls for herself and her bridesmaids, as well as some cute socks for all of them. She is definitely the type of person who will randomly take out a ball of yarn and start working on some socks on her wedding day. So naturally, we had to get some photos of her knitting in her wedding dress.

Before the ceremony, we met up with Mark at Yellowbelly while we waited for the wedding to begin.

When the ceremony began and Melissa walked down the aisle there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Melissa had a surprise for Mark during the ceremony: she presented him with a ball of yarn and some knitting needles and jokingly told him that he would have to learn how to knit if they were to have a happy marriage. It was a super cute addition to the day!

After the ceremony, we boarded a limo and made our way to Bowring Park for some beautiful fall shots.

But before we could arrive at Bowring Park, we obviously had to make a stop at Melissa and Mark’s house to pick up their adorable dog Winston. We absolutely love it when couples include their pets on their wedding day. They are such a big part of a family, and we think they make for some of the best photos. We know that Melissa’s favourite shots from her wedding day all involve Sir Winston. There was so much happiness and love in the air that even Winston had a giant smile plastered on his face for the photos. What a cute little family filled with so much love for each other!

Melissa and her best friend Lisa told us the story of how they became best friends over a shared childhood obsession with the show Days of Our Lives, and they recently got matching Hour Glass tattoos to symbolize their friendship. So, of course, we had to capture that on camera too!

After our Bowring Park shots with the bridal party, we left the bridesmaids and groomsmen in the comfort of the limo and headed out to a meadow to get some private shots of the bride and groom. That’s when the real magic began and we captured the most breathtaking, intimate moments between Melissa and Mark. That dress + the sunset + dancing in a meadow = perfection.

After Melissa and Mark’s sunset dance, we made our way back to Yellowbelly for the beautiful, intimate reception.

Melissa and Mark’s wedding day happened to fall on Melissa’s grandfather’s birthday. She wanted to celebrate the special day with him, so she surprised him with his own birthday cake and all of the guests sang Happy Birthday to him. It was such a beautiful moment! We love when couples incorporate special touches like this to their wedding!

When it came time for the father and bride dance, Melissa and her dad broke out into a fun dance to the song My Girl. It was so lovely that we assumed they had planned it and even choreographed a few moves. It turns out that they put zero planning into it, and Melissa’s dad didn’t even know what song they would be dancing to. This is another great example of how everything just fell so perfectly into place on their wedding day!

We’re firm believers that if you let yourself veer off the traditional course and decide to have a fun wedding that you’re just genuinely enjoying, the photos will follow. Melissa and Mark didn’t put much planning into their wedding photos. They told us it was important to include Winston, but that was about it. Instead of planning the photos, they planned the day that they would want to live over and over again, and that gave room for beautiful moments to happen naturally. Melissa and Mark put their trust in us to capture the right moments in the right way, which allowed for them to focus on what really matters – being present with each other and creating lasting memories. We were so happy to be there to witness and capture those significant moments with them. We couldn’t stop smiling the whole day!

Because Melissa and Mark put so much emphasis on living in the moment and having as much fun as possible, that energy spread throughout everyone who shared in their wedding day. We’re pretty sure that everyone went home at the end of the night with a little extra love and light in their hearts. We also know for a fact that three of Melissa’s close friends got engaged shortly after her wedding, so that’s pretty good proof of how much love was in the air that day. Thanks for letting us be a part of your magical, fun-filled wedding day, Melissa and Mark (and Winston)!

Alex Stead Photography is based out of St. John's, Newfoundland. To contact us directly, email info (at) alexsteadphotos (dot) com.
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